


Of washing dishes and counting busses

by PurpleMoons (ForErusSake)



Category: K-pop, ONEUS (Band)
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone is a mess in this one, Friendship, Gen, Light Angst, Panic Attacks, Sad with a Happy Ending, and everyone is angry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29519673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForErusSake/pseuds/PurpleMoons
Summary: With comeback preparations not going as planned, the stress takes a toll on everyone and tensions boil over. Harsh words are spoken, feelings are hurt and the maknaes take it upon themselves to repair the damage done to their hyungs’ relationship. More than just the success of their comeback is on the line. Their relationship as a group, as a family hangs in their balance. ONEUS’ youngest knows this all too well and that thought turns out to be harder to deal with than the comeback preparations themselves.
Relationships: Kim Geonhak | Leedo & Son Dongju | Xion, Kim Youngjo | Ravn & Son Dongju | Xion, Lee Keonhee & Son Dongju | Xion, Lee Seoho & Son Dongju | Xion, ONEUS Ensemble & Son Dongju | Xion, Son Dongju | Xion & Everyone, Son Dongju | Xion & Yeo Hwanwoong
Comments: 3
Kudos: 56





	Of washing dishes and counting busses

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic, so soon after the last one? Unlikely but here it is. I neglected my uni homework for this so hopefully it isn't awful.  
> Obligatory disclaimer: this is a work of fiction, none of the things described here have really happened, I'm just playing in the sandbox, so to speak.  
> It's already in the tags, but Dongju has a brief panic attack in this, just a warning for that.  
> Hope you'll enjoy this :)

Dongju watches from across the room as his hyung bustles about in the kitchen. Youngjo hasn’t noticed him sitting on the couch. It’s early, not even 6 o’clock yet. Dongju had woken up at 5 and been unable to fall asleep again. Nerves probably. After rolling onto his other side for the twelfth time in as many minutes he had decided that it wasn’t worth the risk of waking up any of the others. He had taken his phone off the charger, slipped out of bed and made a space for himself on the couch, surrounded by pillows, wrapped in his blue blanket, waiting for his hyungs to wake up and make breakfast.

Making breakfast is what he assumes Youngjo is trying to do at the moment, but Dongju doesn’t think his hyung is getting very far. There is something frantic, a touch of annoyance in the way he moves around the small space of the kitchen.

Dongju can count on one hand the times he has seen his hyung look annoyed. Youngjo is the type to keep his emotions to himself. It’s funny really, because their oldest is one of the most tactile persons Dongju knows, and he is considerate, a huge softy really. Not quite the type to coo at other people’s babies and puppies in public, like Geonhak is – though if you were to ask him their third oldest would vehemently deny that allegation – but Youngjo is definitely a softy. The biggest softy, but he has also made it clear in no uncertain terms that he would rather die than talk about his feelings with any of the other members.

Youngjo is definitely annoyed right now though. Dongju is more sure of that with every minute he watches his oblivious hyung from across the room. He is observant. Dongju is the problem-solver of the group. He can only do that by watching closely. For now he decides he has been watching his hyung in silence long enough. He unwraps himself from his blanket burrito, gets up and quietly pads over to the kitchen.

“Hyung? Everything okay?”

Youngjo turns around, surprise evident on his face, a dishtowel in one hand and a half-dried plate in the other.

“You’re up already?” – his eyes narrow – “Couldn’t sleep?”

“I was awake before you. I was on the couch.”

Youngjo turns his head to look across the room at the couch, as if he expects it to speak up and give him an eye-witness account.

“Everything okay?” Dongju asks again, waiting until his hyung’s gaze drifts back to him. The other shrugs and tilts his head. It looks just the slightest bit comical, with the plate and tea-towel still in his hands. He is frowning though.

“Sure, why?”

“I don’t know, you just seem annoyed at something.”

Youngjo turns back towards the counter, suddenly very focused on rubbing the plate with the towel.

“I’m not annoyed at anything.”

“Hyung…” Dongju starts.

“Look, I’m not annoyed, I just didn’t sleep very well.”

Dongju looks around the kitchen. There are still pots and plates and cooking utensils lying around. Things they used for dinner after they came back from practice yesterday. Uncleaned things.

Youngjo had stayed longer even after they had gone home. Dongju wonders when he came in and if he even had dinner before going to bed. If he even slept at all.

“I’m sorry we didn’t clean up yesterday.”

His hyung stays silent, still rubbing the frankly dripping wet towel on the plate that, obviously, isn’t getting any drier.

“I don’t think it’s going to dry like that.”

Youngjo freezes.

“Hyung?”

The other suddenly puts the plate and towel down and whirls around. For a second Dongju is worried he is angry – he has seen his hyung angry even fewer times than he’s seen him annoyed – and he opens his mouth to apologize again, but Youngjo just walks over to the cleaning cupboard, takes out a dry towel, walks back and resumes drying off the plate. He doesn’t say a word.

Dongju watches the other in silence for a moment longer. Then he sighs and rolls up his sleeves. He quietly moves over to the counter to pick up one of the dirty plates, slip it into the soapy water and set to work on cleaning it. He furiously scrubs at it for a while before he notices Youngjo has gone still next to him. He looks up from the plate and the soap and the water to see his hyung staring at him.

“I’m sorry we didn’t clean up yesterday,” he mumbles again.

Youngjo stares at him for another second before holding out his hand. It takes Dongju a moment to realize his hyung is waiting for him to hand over the plate he is cleaning. Dongju quickly turns away and rinses it off before handing it to him.

“It’s okay, Dongju-yah. Don’t worry about it.”

He does worry though. He worries about the minute frown on his hyung’s face, about the dark circles under his eyes that have been getting more and more prominent these past days, the tension in his shoulders.

Comeback season is just around the corner. They’ve all been working so hard to make this their best comeback yet. They’ve worked harder than ever before. Dongju thinks it’s starting to take a toll on them all. He knows it is. He can see it more clearly than ever looking at his hyung right now. But there is nothing Dongju can do about it except try his best and be kind to the others, and hope that everything will go well and this period of stress will be but a momentary thing. He worries anyway.

He worries about the strange tension that seems to have taken a hold of the six of them. The result of a mix of perpetual nervousness and exhaustion. Everyone has been tired lately, wound up like puppets on a string. He worries one of these days one of them is going to snap. He has noticed the others being more sensitive, more prone to being annoyed at little things that wouldn’t normally bother them so much. He has noticed it in himself too. How Hwanwoong’s tendency to leave his tube of toothpaste uncapped has been getting on his nerves. It’s ridiculous, and normally he would just say something about it and they would work it out, but Dongju worries. He worries that if he says something about it now this small thing is going to blow up into a big thing, and all of this, this house of cards they’ve been working on since they were put into one group, normally so sturdy, will come crashing down. And now he sees is in his oldest hyung too. This tension. He sees it in the only one of them he hadn’t seen it in yet. So Dongju worries.

“Dongju-yah! You’re dripping water all over the floor.”

He is startled from his thoughts. He looks down and notices that he is indeed holding a cup upside down, tipping its contents onto the kitchen tiles.

“Oh, I, I’m sorry hyung...”

He can tell Youngjo is trying not to look annoyed. With anyone else he might’ve managed it, but Dongju can tell easily. He is observant. He also sees a hint of worry underneath the annoyance. His oldest hyung is easily worried. About all of them, but especially about Dongju. He always goes the extra mile to make sure the youngest of the group is feeling well. It makes Dongju feel guilty at times, to see how much time Youngjo invests into looking after him. Time he could spend on other, actually useful things. Time he could spend relaxing. It doesn’t go unnoticed how often Youngjo asks him if he’s slept well, if he’s eaten, if he needs any help with anything, how often he offers Dongju a snack he brought to practice for himself, offers him his own coat when he’s cold, asks for breaks during practice, telling the others it is because he needs one himself, when it’s really because he noticed Dongju did. His hyung worries easily.

Today is a rare day on which Youngjo’s annoyance wins out over his worry.

“Go wake up the others, I’ll finish this up. Tell Seoho I’ll need an extra hand to make breakfast.”

Dongju can’t help but feel ashamed at the reprimand, even if it is deserved. He wanted to help, but he’s only ended up giving Youngjo yet another thing to clean up. His hyung seems to pick up on his shame.

“It’s not a big deal, just go.”

Except that Dongju can tell it is a big deal. Today at least. He doesn’t say anything though. He just nods and does as he’s told. Dongju isn’t sure how today is going to go, but he has a bad feeling, and his bad feelings are rarely wrong.

He almost forgets about it once the day gets properly underway. He wakes up the others. By the time everyone is up Youngjo is done washing the dishes and mopping the floor. He and Seoho make breakfast for the six of them. They all eat together and then they go over to the studio for dance practice. Breakfast seems to have put Youngjo in a better mood and after their minor pre-dawn mishap the day starts relatively smoothly. Without any incidents. If Seoho seems a bit reserved and on edge, Dongju just has to promise himself he’ll ask the other about it later.

In hindsight Dongju should’ve known better than to ignore the obvious. His bad feelings are rarely wrong.

Today’s practice session is all about perfecting the details. Going over the moments where they’re most likely to go out of sync, making sure their expressions are on point, fixing the positioning of a hand here, a foot there. Small things. Or that is what it was supposed to be about.

It takes them one full run-through to realize they aren’t as far along as they thought they were when they decided to finally call it a day yesterday evening. It’s frustrating. It is as if all the effort they put in yesterday, or the day before, or the one before that, has yielded no results whatsoever. The frustration instantly dampens everyone’s mood, hopeful nervousness giving way to gloomy exhaustion that doesn’t do their dancing any favours.

Hwanwoong, as main dancer, is the one to take charge of the situation. Dongju is both relieved and worried. Their second youngest is a great teacher. If anyone can fix whatever slump this is they’re in, it’s him. He also worries. Because that strange tension Dongju’s been feeling is back with a vengeance. Looking at the other members, frustration evident in their faces, their posture, the way they move, Dongju can’t help but worry that one wrong word from Hwanwoong might be the spark that sets off a raging fire.

It isn’t. Surprisingly, everyone takes Hwanwoong’s constructive criticism well. Dongju wonders if he’s putting too little faith in his hyungs’ professionalism. Of course they would take it well, it’s their job, and Hwanwoong is just doing his. He takes them all aside individually to give them some pointers, gives them all a pep-talk even. It works surprisingly well, and maybe Dongju shouldn’t be this surprised because this is Hwanwoong, but with this much tension between them all he was sure something was going to blow up. Two hours after they started, their dancing is looking infinitely better than it did when they came in. It puts Dongju at ease.

It is precisely because Dongju feels more at ease that it comes as so much of a surprise when things do blow up.

It’s silly really. It’s a silly accident that starts it. Not as silly as an uncapped tube of toothpaste or a cup full of dishwater, but a silly thing nonetheless.

It’s Geonhak’s shoelaces.

They come loose at some point during their umpteenth run-through of the day – Dongju has long since stopped counting – and he doesn’t notice until it’s too late. Until he trips over them and careens into an already tense Seoho, sending them both crashing to the floor.

“Yah, would you watch out?!” Seoho yells, as Hwanwoong rushes to pause the music.

“It’s just my shoelaces...” Geonhak looks at his hyung with slightly dazed expression.

“Then tie them, we don’t have time for this, someone could’ve been injured!”

Dongju watches the scene unfold.

“It was an accident.”

“Just get up.”

“Hyung, would you just…”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!”

It is at that moment that their eldest seems to have recovered from the shock enough to step in.

“Seoho-yah, slow down…”

Seoho whirls around to fix a glare at Youngjo.

“Are you taking his side?”

Youngjo raises an eyebrow. “This is not about sides.” – he raises his hands in a placating gesture – “I think everyone is a little tense right now…”

“I think Seoho-hyung is more than a _little_ tense…”

Geonhak mumbles the words under his breath, but it’s just loud enough that Seoho picks up on it.

“Are you kidding me?” he roars, “We have our comeback in less than three weeks and you just caused us to fall over mid-choreo like we’re a bunch of fifteen-year-old trainees! Can you imagine that happening on stage…”

“Hyung, it happened because my shoelaces were untied, chill out,” Geonhak raises his voice in agitation.

“Yah!” Seoho takes a step towards the younger. Dongju holds his breath, but then Youngjo steps in between the two, grabbing Seoho’s arm to stop him from doing anything particularly stupid.

“That’s enough!”

The temperature in the room seems to instantly drop below zero. Youngjo never raises his voice at them. Ever. Anything Seoho or Geonhak might’ve wanted to say dies on their lips.

“Seoho-yah, go outside, go take a walk around the building, I don’t care, just don’t come back in here until you’ve cooled down. We will talk about this later.”

For a moment Dongju thinks that’s it. Youngjo has fixed this. Seoho is going to take a walk, calm down and then everything will resume as normal. In hindsight that would’ve been too easy. He can almost see the wheels turn in Seoho’s head. He can spot the exact moment when his hyung’s mood shifts.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Dongju watches from across the room as his hyung’s eyes fill up with tears. “You always take their side… I’m your dongsaeng too…”

Dongju sees their oldest open his mouth to respond, but Seoho has already pulled his arm from the other’s grasp and fled the room before his hyung can come up with anything to say.

A few seconds go by that feel more like hours before Geonhak breaks the silence: “Hyung…”

“Don’t,” Youngjo cuts him off, tiredly rubbing a hand down his face, “just don’t. Don’t start a fight with me too.”

“I didn’t start anything.”

Youngjo looks at him incredulously. Dongju can see his oldest hyung visibly reigning himself in. He sighs.

“Let’s just take a break.”

Geonhak huffs, finally gets up off the floor, and walks out.

It’s silent in the practice room again. They’re in the eye of the storm. Hwanwoong still standing by the sound station, hand still hovering over the pause-button. Keonhee is frozen in place exactly where the suddenly cut off choreo left him. Dongju looks at the two of them, then at Youngjo, then back at Hwanwoong and Keonhee, then back at Youngjo, and he opens his mouth.

“Hyung? What do we do now?”

Youngjo looks up, arms defensively pulled around himself, annoyance for once abundantly visible on his face, much more visible than this morning when Dongju dumped his cup full of dishwater on the kitchen tiles.

“How would I know? Just take a break,” he bites out, turning his back to his remaining dongsaengs. He stalks across the room, takes his water bottle out of his bag, and throws himself down on the floor in the corner of the room with a little frustrated growl.

Dongju wants to say something, anything, to make it right, but this is the second time his oldest hyung has almost yelled at him today, and he can’t think of anything he could say that would make this situation better. Dongju is normally the problem-solver of the group, but for once he has no idea what to do or how to fix this.

He is pulled from his thoughts when Hwanwoong puts a hand on his shoulder and starts manoeuvring him and Keonhee towards the door.

“We’re going out for a couple minutes,” he yells in Youngjo’s general direction. Their hyung doesn’t respond.

Once they’re out of the room Dongju halts, forcing the others to stop moving too.

“Where exactly are we going?”

“The three of us going to make a plan,” Hwanwoong responds, “we’re going to fix this.”

Dongju let’s himself be dragged along, down the hallway, up the stairs, occasionally glancing at Keonhee, who has a look of confusion on his face Dongju thinks must be mirrored by his own, until Hwanwoong finds a place he apparently thinks is an acceptable spot to talk.

It takes them 15 minutes to make a plan. They start with sharing their observations about the other members. Dongju tells the others about the strange tension he’s been feeling, how Seoho had seemed especially wound up and withdrawn this morning. He tells them about his and Youngjo’s dishwashing mishap, which makes Hwanwoong cringe, knowing he had been one of the people to argue in favour of leaving the clean-up until after they had all had some sleep. Keonhee tells them he’s been worried about Youngjo in particular, how he went to the bathroom at close to 2 o’clock this morning and noticed the door to their oldest’s bedroom was still open and his bed still empty. Dongju can’t help but think it’s no wonder Youngjo was annoyed this morning, he can’t have slept much, or even at all, the dark circles under his eyes make sense too. Hwanwoong in turn tells him about a conversation he had with Geonhak yesterday evening. How the older has actually been annoyed with Youngjo’s habit of keeping his frustrations to himself and isolating himself instead of speaking up when things aren’t going the way he wants, which Dongju had already realized is exactly what their oldest hyung had done yesterday. Dongju has noticed him doing that with all their comebacks. Before their debut too. Letting the others go home and staying late himself to avoid having to talk to them over dinner. Never quite as bad as right now though.

It doesn’t take the three of them long to realize that this implosion of sorts – their hyungs arguing like they rarely ever do, Seoho being unable to listen to the others and ending up running away in tears, Geonhak being too frustrated to recognize that his own behaviour is part of the problem, Youngjo trying to fix everything, biting off more than he can chew, and only making the whole thing worse – was going to happen anyway at some point. Comeback or not. Dongju realizes now that for all that he talks to the others individually, pushes them to talk to each other from time to time to fix any issues they might have with each other, they haven’t really sat down specifically to talk with all six of them recently. It turns out that while they were occupied elsewhere, a fundamental construction error has slipped into this house of cards of theirs and the looming deadline has only added pressure to an already weakened structure. Unlike a house of cards though, which has to be rebuilt all over again from the ground up once it has fallen, their problem is an easy fix. They just need to talk.

Dongju quickly finds out this is easier said than done. For multiple reasons.

The first one being this: in order to talk, they need to get all of their hyungs back in the same room.

Geonhak and Youngjo are relatively easy to find. The former considerably easier than Dongju expected. They find him leaning against the wall outside the practice room, seemingly with no intention of entering. They leave Hwanwoong with him, to convince him to come inside. Dongju and Keonhee find Youngjo exactly where they left him, curled up in the corner of the practice room, water bottle in hand, except that he is now fast asleep, looking more peaceful than he has in a while. Dongju wishes he could just cover him with a blanket and let him sleep – heaven knows their oldest needs it – but first they need to talk, and then they have to work.

Comebacks are always an attack on everyone’s health, it’s just how it is. It’s an accepted fact of the industry. Dongju can’t help but think that maybe that isn’t how it should be, that maybe the way the industry works isn’t the way it should work. There is nothing he can do about it though. He would be lying if he said not being able to do anything about it doesn’t hurt from time to time, that it doesn’t make him feel like a useless problem-solver if he can’t solve the biggest problem they have, but he is one individual in a world where individuals don’t mean anything, he is a mouse fighting against a dragon. It is how it is.

Finding Seoho is more of a challenge. They decide that the best way to get him to return is having Dongju try to call him. It takes six tries before their second oldest picks up the phone, and ten minutes of talking to him in a whiny voice to convince him to come back. Dongju is very conscious of the fact that his hyungs can’t refuse him anything, and Seoho is the worst of them all at saying no. He feels bad, using that against his hyung, but he also knows there is no other way.

Five minutes after Dongju puts down the phone, Hwanwoong leads a grumpy-looking Geonhak inside. Another five minutes later Seoho steps in, studiously avoiding all eye-contact. Red-rimmed, puffy eyes trained on the floor. Keonhee moves across the room to wake Youngjo.

The second and quite a bit more substantial hurdle in their plan is actually getting their hyungs to talk. Dongju quickly realizes this is going to be a challenge. The three of them refuse to look at each other, let alone talk.

Dongju tries. He tries to nudge them together, tries giving them topics of conversation, tries starting conversations with them individually and then entice the others to join in, but his hyungs are having absolutely none of it. It’s beyond frustrating. It’s also worrying. He has never seen any of them like this. Sure, they have their disagreements from time to time, but normally they work through them quickly, normally they aren’t this petty. It speaks volumes about how beyond exhausted his hyungs actually are. Looking at the others, at Youngjo quietly fiddling with his water bottle, at Seoho refusing to look any of the others in the eye, at Geonhak frowning so hard Dongju thinks it will leave a permanent crease in his brow, at Keonhee and Hwanwoong leaning against the wall with identical expressions of worry on their faces, Dongju has never felt so lost in his life. These are his friends, his family, being driven apart by something none of them seem to have any real control over, and he has no idea what to do.

It is Hwanwoong, always Hwanwoong, who makes a last-ditch attempt:

“Hyungs, would you please…”

He gets cut off before he can even finish his sentence.

“Let’s just get back to work.”

It’s Youngjo who’s spoken, and Dongju can’t believe his ears.

He looks over at Hwanwoong and Keonhee, hoping that one of them will put their foot down, will make their hyungs see reason, but they seem to be as lost as he is. In hindsight their plan wasn’t much of a plan at all. In hindsight Dongju isn’t much of a problem-solver. At least not enough of one. Not for this.

They move back into position, Hwanwoong turns the music back on, it’s like the whole thing hasn’t happened. Except it has, and they’re still stuck in the eye of the storm, and it’s visible in every single movement they make. It’s visible in the way their expressions don’t fit the music, in the way their movements are too angled, the way they’re physically in sync but somehow still look jarringly out of sync in the mirror. They’re in every way worse than they were when they came in this morning. It’s awful and the tension is unbearable and Dongju tries and tries and tries but their house of cards has imploded and he can’t imagine a way out of this that doesn’t involve them throwing all the cards into the fire for good measure too.

He feels like crying.

Dongju doesn’t know how long they continue like that – it could be half an hour, could be four – before the others have finally had enough, before they’re all so exhausted that they have to come to terms with a fact Dongju had already accepted right at the beginning:

“This is pointless.”

It’s Geonhak. Voice just loud enough to be heard over the music. He steps out of the formation, leaving it broken and ugly and wrong, and it stops the others dead in their tracks.

“We have to practice,” Seoho says, audible only because Hwanwoong has yet again rushed to pause the music.

“It’s pointless, hyung.”

“How can you say that?”

Geonhak whirls around to look at the other. He raises his voice:

“Can’t you see? We’ve been at it for how long? We’re not making any progress. It’s fucking pointless!”

“Yah, mind your language!”

It’s silly. That a phrase Seoho normally only ever uses jokingly is the thing that sets them off again, that rips them out of the eye of the storm they were in, throws them back out onto open see. It’s as silly as an uncapped tube of toothpaste, a cup full of dishwater, a pair of shoelaces.

“My language is about the least of our concerns right now.”

“That is why we have to practice!”

Geonhak throws up his hands in frustration.

“Hyung there is no fucking point in practicing if we’re not getting any better. We’re just wasting our time!”

“Then what do you suggest we do, Kim Geonhak, just give up?”

Dongju looks at Keonhee and Hwanwoong, who are staring at their hyungs in open-mouthed shock.

“Of course not!”

But at the same time another voice speaks up:

“Maybe we should.”

It’s Youngjo. His voice soft, tired, beyond tired. Youngjo who is normally the last of them to give up on resolving an argument; Youngjo who cares about them so much that he always puts their needs before his own; Youngjo who gives Dongju his snacks and his coat, who gets up first and goes to bed last, who always has a smile or a hug or a word of encouragement ready whenever any of them need it. Youngjo who would rather die than talk to them about his feelings, but who would die before allowing any of them to get hurt. The fact that it is him, of the six of them, who is the first to give up, hurts Dongju more than anything else that has happened today. It hurts him more than Youngjo telling him off for making a mess in the kitchen, more than Geonhak trying to provoke his hyungs into an argument, more than Seoho yelling and crying and running away. It hurts.

It hurts like a slap to the face, like someone has plunged a knife into his stomach, like there is a hand that’s reached into his chest and ripped out his heart. He bursts into tears.

The others turn to look at him with shocked expressions. For a moment they all just stand there, then Keonhee starts to move across the room, to comfort him, but he freezes in place when Hwanwoong finally, finally, loses his temper too:

“Look what you’ve all done! Are you happy now? What are you? Children?”

Their second youngest glares at his three oldest hyungs individually.

“And as if your ridiculous, childish behaviour wasn’t bad enough, now you’ve gone and made Dongju cry! Do you have any sense of shame at all?”

Under different circumstances, Hwanwoong would be crossing the line by yelling at his hyungs like this. Right now, the three of them just take the verbal beating for what it is. The truth. Their behaviour _has_ been childish, and – the worst of crimes – they _have_ made Dongju cry.

“Do you even care?” Hwanwoong thunders. That, however, _is_ crossing the line.

“Of course we care!” Geonhak responds, voice raised, taken aback by their second youngest’s accusation.

“Well then show it! Fucking fix this so we can all move on!”

This time it’s Seoho who speaks up, annoyance audible in his voice, even if it’s still rough from all the crying and yelling he’s done today:

“If we knew how to fix this, we would have already. Do you think we’re doing this on purpose? Do you think we’re sabotaging our comeback on purpose? Do you think we want to yell at each other?”

“If you don’t then stop it!”

Seoho looks at Hwanwoong incredulously.

Dongju just lets it all pass him by. He listens to his hyungs arguing, Hwanwoong too now, and cries. This wasn’t the plan. The plan was getting the others to talk, not getting involved in the argument, making it worse. It seems Hwanwoong, normally so good at keeping the peace, has forgotten that plan in the heat of the moment.

Dongju listens to Seoho and Geonhak and Hwanwoong arguing back and forth, not really understanding any of the words anymore. He looks at Keonhee, still frozen in place, too shocked and scared to move. He looks at Youngjo, who is just standing there. Youngjo who hates arguments, who makes sure any arguments they do have get resolved as quickly as possible, who is so conflict-averse he’d rather get up before dawn when he has barely slept, to wash dishes he hadn’t even used himself, than get angry at any of the other members about them not washing them the night before. He looks at Youngjo, who looks back at him, exhaustion visible in every fibre of his being, a mix of shame and fear and unbearable sadness on his face, looking like he wants nothing more than to walk up to Dongju and pull him into a hug, comfort him, but knowing he is the one who made Dongju cry in the first place. Not any of the others. Him.

Dongju thinks about the tension that’s been growing between them all. The tension that settled in their bones, waiting for the right moment to explode.

He saw it coming. The others didn’t but he did. Because Dongju is observant. He is their problem-solver. He saw it all, how Youngjo withdrew from them, how Seoho became so tense he would visibly shake at times, how Geonhak couldn’t stop frowning, how even Keonhee and Hwanwoong became silent. He saw it all, but he didn’t do a thing. He let it happen. If only he had said something, instead of cowering away in fear, if only he had spoken up about Hwanwoong’s uncapped tube of toothpaste, if only he had done the dishes last night instead of leaving them for Youngjo to find in the morning. It’s all his fault. This implosion is his fault. It’s his fault.

“Dongju-yah?”

He is so caught up in his own thoughts that he hasn’t even noticed the others going silent, turning to look at him, worried expressions on their faces.

“Doongdoongie?”

Youngjo’s voice, clawing its way through the fog in his brain, and he can’t listen to it. He can’t listen to them anymore. He caused this, and anything he might say will only make it worse.

“No! I don’t want to hear it!”

The others look at him in confusion.

“What?”

“I caused this, this is my fault, don’t let me make it worse, please don’t let me make it worse.”

Youngjo takes a step towards him.

“What are you talking about? How is this your fault?”

Dongju flinches away, not noticing the hurt that flashes across his hyung’s face, stepping back until he’s leaning against the wall.

“Just stop it. Please just stop…”

“Dongju-yah…”

“Stop!”

He yells, panic coursing through his body. He feels like he can’t breathe, like the walls are closing in on him and there is too little air in the room for them all. He feels like he is going to die, like he will suffocate if he stays here. He needs to get away. He needs to get out.

“Dongju-yah, you need to calm down.”

He looks up at his hyung, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

“I’m sorry.”

He turns around and runs. Out through the door, down the hallway to the elevators. He can vaguely hear his hyungs calling after him. He takes the elevator down to the ground floor, every second it takes a second too long. He rushes through the foyer, past the receptionist, who calls out to him, but he can’t understand a word she’s saying, because he still. Can’t. Breathe. He rushes outside and then he runs and runs and he keeps running. He doesn’t even know where he is going, only that he has to get away. He runs until his legs start to feel numb and his lungs are burning. He stops, bending over, hands resting on his knees, and he focuses on breathing. On the way his heart thumps in his chest and his lungs expand with every breath. Until he is calm again. Until the panic has finally subsided and he can think again.

He looks around, trying to find out where he is. There is a convenience store on the other side of the road, a small restaurant next to it, there is a bus stop. He knows this place. This is where he used to take the bus, back in the time before their debut, on the rare instances he was allowed to go home to see his parents. He can still see himself standing there, with his suitcase, after a long last day of practice, Dongmyeong standing next to him, waiting for the bus that would take them away from all this. Away from the stress, away from the pressure to perform, away from the anxiety of not being good enough. That is the place his body has subconsciously decided to take him. Away. Of course his legs would take him there. This bus stop is synonymous with peace. He quietly sits down on the bench at the stop. Eight minutes until the next bus. He will let it pass by, and he will continue sitting here, waiting for the next one, and the next one, and the one after that. It’s not the first time he’s done that.

He remembers the only other time he’s ever run away. Just before their debut, when everything was so hectic and stressful. Too stressful. Much like it is now, only then his hyungs were handling it better than he was. It was Youngjo who found him, with Dongmyeong’s help, sitting on the bench at the stop. Shivering without his coat. Nine busses had passed in the time he’d waited. It was Youngjo who talked to him, convinced him to “please, at least come back home, it’ll be warm there”. Dongju had been so lost, feeling like he was still behind on his hyungs in so many ways, even though they would debut soon. He still feels like that sometimes, like he just isn’t good enough, like he can’t compare and no matter how hard he works to improve it’s never enough. Like he will always be one step behind on everyone else. Sometimes he struggles to see his own worth, to understand what it is that he adds to the group, why they would ever need him. His hyungs are so good, so perfect as they are, they could never need him to make them better. Dongju is the problem-solver of the group, but today he has proven that he isn’t even good enough for that. Tears fill up his eyes again. He lets them drip down his face, onto the tiles below, like the dishwater onto the kitchen floor.

It was Youngjo who found him then. It is Youngjo who finds him now. Dongju doesn’t know how many busses have passed, he hasn’t counted them this time. He just feels someone sitting down next to him and it pulls him from his thoughts. He startles, prepared to stand up, out of the way, when a familiar hand comes to rest on his knee.

“Hey.”

He looks up, into the worried eyes of his oldest hyung. Youngjo is frowning, like he was in the kitchen, with the towel and plate in his hands, and yet his expression is entirely unlike what it was this morning.

“I’m sorry,” Dongju whispers.

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. That we should give up. It’s not true.”

Dongju looks away. Four minutes until the next bus.

“But what if it is?”

“It isn’t. We’re not going to give up. We’re a team.”

Dongju sighs. Are they? Are they a team, after today? After the storm destroyed their house of cards? Can it be rebuilt that easily?

He tried. With Hwanwoong and Keonhee, he tried, but he only made it worse.

“But how can we be a team if you’re all mad at each other?”

“We’re not mad at each other,” Youngjo responds, words rushed, and then he seems to realize how ridiculous that sounds, “Okay, maybe we were a little mad at each other.”

“But?”

Youngjo smiles at him. It’s a small smile, Dongju almost misses it.

“We’re just tired. All of this, the stress of the industry, humans aren’t made for it, Doongdoongie. But you know that. It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

“Here?”

“At this bus stop.”

It’s become a sign, a metaphor, a place that’s more than just a place. It’s a feeling. This stop means getting out, getting away from it all and just being.

“I come here sometimes,” he explains, his voice soft, just loud enough that Youngjo will hear it over the buzz of the traffic, “I don’t even need to go anywhere. I just sit here and watch the busses pass by. Imagine I am seeing all the bad feelings off, sending them far away. It makes me feel better. It’s the next best thing to actually getting on that bus and leaving myself.”

Youngjo squeezes his knee.

“I’m sorry for making you feel that way. Like you want to leave.”

“You don’t make me feel that way.”

Youngjo sighs.

“I did today.”

“No you didn’t. _I_ made myself feel like that. I caused all of this.”

Youngjo is frowning again.

“Whatever makes you think that?”

Dongju doesn’t want to tell him. He doesn’t want to talk about this. He also knows he has to. If they don’t talk about it now they never will. Today has taught him the consequences of not talking about things that are important, even if those things seem small, like uncleaned dishes and uncapped tubes of toothpaste.

“I saw it coming. I knew this was going to happen. Everyone was tense and tired and I knew you were going to have an argument, but I let it happen.”

Youngjo huffs.

“And you think I didn’t? That I didn’t see it coming?” – he lifts a hand to pull at the collar of his coat – “If anyone is at fault here for not stepping in it’s me, Dongju-yah. As the oldest I should’ve said something, I should’ve made sure everyone was okay, I should’ve talked to Seoho this morning, come home with you yesterday evening, talked to Geonhak. But I didn’t, because I’m bad at that. I’m bad at dealing with conflict and I avoid it to the point where it destroys my relationships with other people. And I let that happen. I run and hide, by staying out late, needlessly drowning myself in extra work, doing other people’s dishes, when I should take responsibility and confront my problems head on. Instead I let it tire me out, I let those tiny frustrations build up until I can’t ignore them anymore, and by that time it is too late. If anything, all of this is my fault.”

Dongju stares at his hyung, mouth hanging open. This is Youngjo. Youngjo who would rather die than talk to any of them about his feelings, and he is doing exactly that. He seems to feels Dongju’s confusion at his sudden openness.

“I know I don’t talk much. Especially not about these things, but I need you to know that it’s okay to talk about those things. That you can talk to me if you ever feel like this again, like you’re the one doing something wrong. Because you aren’t. It’s not your fault, Doongdoongie. It’s never your fault.”

Dongju takes a deep breath, focuses again on the feeling of his heart beating, his chest expanding. He doesn’t want to cry again. He has cried enough already.

“It’s hard sometimes.”

“I know.”

“It’s hard to think I matter, to think I’m worthy of being a part of ONEUS.”

He whispers that last part, almost like he doesn’t want Youngjo to hear it, maybe he does. He looks away again. A bus has passed by. 12 minutes until the next one.

“Dongju-yah, would you please look at me?”

He hesitates. Eyes trained on the road. He feels the other squeeze his knee again. He looks up. Youngjo’s eyes are wet with unspilled tears.

“Hyung?”

“Of course you are worthy, of course you matter. You matter so much. More than anything else in the world. You matter so much to us. We love you so much, Dongju-yah. Do you know that? Please tell me you know that.”

A single tear runs down his hyung’s cheek. And then another, and another.

“I do know that. It’s just hard to understand sometimes.”

Youngjo smiles at him through his tears. It is a soft smile, a worried smile, one that holds so much love it makes Dongju feel warm even without his coat, like his heart could jump out of his chest.

“I get that. I feel the same sometimes, but that’s okay. We just have to keep reminding each other don’t we?”

Dongju throws himself at his hyung. Wraps his arms around the other as tightly as he can. Hugs him like the world is going to end and this is his last chance. Not so long ago today, Dongju was afraid there was going to be a last chance moment soon. That they had hit a road block that was just too heavy to move, that were going to break apart, that they were going to go their separate ways and he would never get to hug the others again, never again get to be annoyed over an uncapped tube of toothpaste, never again get to help Youngjo wash the dishes before dawn. He doesn’t want Youngjo to feel like he needs to wash the dishes at 5 o’clock in the morning ever again, but he knows that it’s those small things, the tiny habits the others have that normally don’t catch anyone’s attention, that would be among the things he would miss the most if they ever did split up. Hwanwoong’s uncapped tube of toothpaste, Seoho hanging his coat over the back of a chair instead of on the coat rack, Keonhee leaving his socks everywhere around the dorm, Youngjo sticking post-it notes scribbled full of ideas for new songs on the bathroom mirror, the fridge door, the back of the TV remote. He would miss it all. He would even miss Geonhak’s snoring.

Dongju realizes now that all the time the others spent being stressed over their comeback, he instead spent being stressed about what that comeback was doing to them. How something that is supposed to be theirs, that is supposed to bring them together on stage, has been driving them apart.

“What do we do now?”

“Come back with me? See the others?”

“How are they?”

Youngjo shifts his hold on him, one hand coming to rest on his head, the other rubbing his back, trying to warm him up a bit.

“They’re okay. Just worried about you. I texted them. Let them know I found you.”

“Are you not mad at each other anymore?”

Youngjo sighs.

“Hwanwoong was right, you know? Even if he was wrong in the way he tried to explain it. We were all being childish. We were all tired and instead of talking to each other and being understanding towards each other, we let it drive us apart, and that in turn drove you away from us.”

Youngjo tenses up a bit next to him, for just a fraction of a second, before the older forces himself to relax again.

“I think that was a bit of a wake-up call. You running away. It put things into perspective.”

“How so?”

Dongju leans back to look at his hyung again. His eyes are still damp, slightly red, though not as much as Dongju’s own must be.

“It made us realize that we were forgetting something very important, something more important than our own individual discomfort, more important than the small annoyances we somehow managed to blow up into something huge,” – he stills for a moment – “It reminded us that we’re a team, Ju. That we’re a family.

Youngjo looks away, at the cars passing by, the pedestrians on the other side of the road, the man in the long black coat walking his dog, the woman with the colourful backpack pushing her baby stroller. He continues:

“It means that the only way we can do this is together. We’re not solo-artists, Dongju-yah. We’re a group. The downside of that is that we have six people, with six different personalities, six different ways to deal with stress, being together most of the time, and we have to manage that relationship. The plus-side is that we have each other to lean on when things get difficult. But we have to allow ourselves to do that. Lean on each other.”

His hyung turns back towards him, looking at him intently. Dark eyes seeming to stare straight into Dongju’s soul.

“It also means that – unlike what I said earlier – if we have a problem between the six of us, it’s never just one person who is at fault. What happened today wasn’t your fault, or mine, or of any of us individually. It was _our_ fault. Together. For not talking when we should’ve. For trying to work towards this comeback like six individuals, instead of one group, and somehow expecting that to work. You see?”

Dongju nods. It’s logical, like all his hyung’s arguments, eminently logical, and does see it, even if it’s hard to ignore the part of him that’s telling him it _is_ his fault. He doesn’t think he can ever really push that aside. He doesn’t think Youngjo can either, no matter how firmly he says these things. Dongju knows his oldest hyung feels responsible for all of them. It’s why he offers Dongju his snacks and his coat, why he is normally the one who tries to solve arguments between the six of them, why he washes their dishes at 5 o’clock in the morning even though he is exhausted and it is the last thing he wants to spend his morning doing. It’s not just because he is conflict-averse. It’s because he cares, because he feels responsible and therefore thinks he should.

“Hyung?”

“Yeah?”

Dongju carefully takes the other’s hand, squeezing it gently.

“If we ever do something stupid like not washing the dishes again, will you wait for us to clean up instead of trying to do it all yourself?”

Youngjo blinks at him, not answering.

“You need to take care of yourself too, hyung. You can’t just take care of us all the time and neglect yourself. Let us do some of the work.”

“Because we’re a team?”

“Because we’re a team. And we love you.”

Youngjo smiles at him.

“We love each other. And yes I will.”

They settle into a companionable silence, watching one more bus go by before they decide they have to get back to the others. It takes longer when they’re not running, but not too long. Just long enough that it gives Dongju some more time to put his thoughts in order. About them. About the comeback. About what he needs to say to the others. Youngjo walks alongside him in silence.

It turns out there is not a whole lot that needs to be said. In the end, their plan _has_ worked, though it took some effort to get there.

When they return to the practice room they find the others sitting on the ground in a small circle. They’re huddled together, speaking softly. When Youngjo clears his throat they all look up, scrambling to get to their feet and throw themselves at their maknae. Dongju is assaulted by a cacophony of voices, asking him if he’s okay, where he’s been, apologizing over and over again.

“It’s okay. Hyungs it’s okay.”

He has to repeat himself another seven times before they finally back down, looking a little sheepish.

“Back to work then?” he asks, knowing that is the easiest way for them to move on.

The others nod gratefully, enthusiastically. They haven’t been this eager to practice for a long time. If his hyungs are all a bit overly sweet to him for the rest of the day, Dongju lets them. He knows it’s just their way of making it up to him.

They all move into position, Hwanwoong starts the music. They dance better than they have all day. Better than they thought they could.

When they eventually call it a day they are all tired. They pack their stuff, happy with the day’s work, even if it didn’t go as planned, but eager to go home. One by one they file out into the hallway.

Dongju pauses in the doorway. The others are just ahead of him, turning to see what’s taking him so long. Youngjo is still standing by the sound station, his backpack in his hand. He seems to hesitate.

“Hyung? Are you coming?”

For a moment Dongju is afraid all their progress today has been for nothing. That Youngjo will say no, will stay late again. That the whole thing will just start all over again from the beginning. But he feels none of that weird tension now. There is still the nervousness that comes with every comeback. They are still tired, but not in that bone-deep, almost suffocating way they have been for the past week. Even with the others standing around him, waiting, he feels none of that strange tension. There is just friendship, understanding, love. They want to go home, but they will wait for as long as they have to. They’re in this together.

He watches Youngjo stand still for a moment longer, and then he turns around. He throws his backpack over his shoulder, walks over to where Dongju is still standing in the door opening. He smiles, turns off the lights.

“Let’s go home.”

Dongju nods. Smiling back.

The others let their oldest hyung through and then move to follow him. Down the hallway, to the elevator. Hwanwoong skips ahead, rushing to catch up to Youngjo, to throw an arm around his shoulder as he’s walking. It’s awkward because of their height difference, but they somehow make it work. Seoho laughs at the slightly comical image, giving Geonhak a nudge, miming taking a picture. Geonhak gets the hint, because he laughs too and takes out his phone, quickly snapping a picture and huddling closer to his hyung to show it to him, heads bunched together to look at the small screen. Dongju stands still for a little too long, because Keonhee grabs his arm and starts dragging him along.

“Come on! There won’t be any food left if we fall behind!” He whines. The bright smile on his face showing that he’s joking. Dongju pulls his arm out of his hyung’s grasp and picks up his pace.

“Not for you there won’t be!”

He looks over his shoulder and sticks out his tongue at Keonhee, rushing after the others members. Keonhee lets out a barking laugh and breaks into a run too.

They easily catch up with the others, rushing past them, Keonhee trying to grab a hold of Dongju’s coat and Dongju trying to evade him.

“Careful, careful!” Youngjo calls out.

“Let the kids play, hyung.”

Dongju can hear the smile in Seoho’s voice, hears the others laugh at his words. He can’t help but smile himself when Keonhee suddenly stops going after him to chase after Seoho instead, Geonhak trying his best not to get caught in between the two of them, ducking away from a pair of grabby hands to worm himself in between Youngjo and Hwanwoong instead.

Dongju had a bad feeling about today and his bad feelings are rarely wrong. They had a less than ideal start this morning, but in the end it’s all come out okay. This morning, Dongju was afraid something about their group was going to break, something irreparable. Now he know that nothing is irreparable if they just work at it hard enough. He is the problem-solver of the group, but is not alone at it. They are in this together, and together is the only way they can weather the storm. No matter how hard things get, together they will find a way.

That’s all in the future.

Right now they will return home, they will have dinner, Youngjo will have dinner with them for once. They will wash the dishes together, without tipping a cup full of water onto the kitchen floor. Tonight he will ask Hwanwoong to please put the cap on his tube of toothpaste, and his hyung will laugh at him but comply without question, the next time he forgets, Dongju won’t mind as much.

Tomorrow he will get up, take his phone off the charger and move to the couch, Youngjo will still be asleep for once, he will watch Seoho and Geonhak bustling about in the kitchen, making breakfast, laughing about something or other that Dongju has missed. When breakfast is almost ready, he will wake up the others, they will eat together and then they will go to the studio again, to practice.

Tomorrow they will find the choreo comes more easily to them. They will find they were exactly as far along as they thought they were after all. Not quite perfect yet, but almost ready for what Dongju is sure will be their best comeback yet. There is no more need for counting busses between now and then.

“What are you thinking about?”

Youngjo’s voice shakes him from his thoughts. He smiles as his hyung wraps an arm around him while they’re walking.

“Just us.”

“What about us?”

He shrugs.

“Nothing. Just us.”

“It’s never just us.”

Dongju turns his head to look at his oldest hyung.

“I’m just glad we’re all together, that I was lucky enough to get to be a part of this.”

His hyung stays silent for a moment.

“We’re lucky to have you. ONEUS wouldn’t be without Xion.”

“ONEUS wouldn’t be without any of us,” he counters.

Youngjo smiles at him.

“We’d better stay together then.”

Dongju rests his head on the other’s shoulder and closes his eyes, trusting his hyung to lead him where he needs to go.

“We will. I’m sure of it.”

He can feel Youngjo nod, pulling him a little bit closer still.

“Yes. I think you’re right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you liked it please leave a comment, comments make my day :)


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